José María Martínez-Martínez

Letters: Regularized extreme learning machine for regression problems

Extreme learning machine (ELM) is a new learning algorithm for single-hidden layer feedforward networks (SLFNs) proposed by Huang et al. [1]. Its main advantage is the lower computational cost, which is especially relevant when dealing with many patterns defined in a high-dimensional space. This paper proposes an algorithm for pruning ELM networks by using regularized regression methods, thus obtaining a suitable number of the hidden nodes in the network architecture. Beginning from an initial large number of hidden nodes, irrelevant nodes are then pruned using ridge regression, elastic net and lasso methods; hence, the architectural design of ELM network can be automated. Empirical studies on several commonly used regression benchmark problems show that the proposed approach leads to compact networks that generate competitive results compared with the ELM algorithm.

Use of Self-Organizing Maps for Balanced Scorecard analysis to monitor the performance of dialysis clinic chains

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a validated tool to monitor enterprise performances against specific objectives. Through the choice and the evaluation of strategic Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), it provides a measure of the past company’s outcome and allows planning future managerial strategies. The Fresenius Medical Care (FME) BSC makes use of 30 KPIs for a continuous quality improvement strategy within its dialysis clinics. Each KPI is monthly associated to a score that summarizes the clinic efficiency for that month. Standard statistical methods are currently used to analyze the BSC data and to give a comprehensive view of the corporate improvements to the top management. We herein propose the Self-Organizing Maps (SOMs) as an innovative approach to extrapolate information from the FME BSC data and to present it in an easy-readable informative form. A SOM is a computational technique that allows projecting high-dimensional datasets to a two-dimensional space (map), thus providing a compressed representation. The SOM unsupervised (self-organizing) training procedure results in a map that preserves similarity relations existing in the original dataset; in this way, the information contained in the high-dimensional space can be more easily visualized and understood. The present work demonstrates the effectiveness of the SOM approach in extracting useful information from the 30-dimensional BSC dataset: indeed, SOMs enabled both to highlight expected relationships between the KPIs and to uncover results not predictable with traditional analyses. Hence we suggest SOMs as a reliable complementary approach to the standard methods for BSC interpretation.

Optimization of anemia treatment in hemodialysis patients via reinforcement learning

OBJECTIVE Anemia is a frequent comorbidity in hemodialysis patients that can be successfully treated by administering erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs). ESAs dosing is currently based on clinical protocols that often do not account for the high inter- and intra-individual variability in the patients response. As a result, the hemoglobin level of some patients oscillates around the target range, which is associated with multiple risks and side-effects. This work proposes a methodology based on reinforcement learning (RL) to optimize ESA therapy. METHODS RL is a data-driven approach for solving sequential decision-making problems that are formulated as Markov decision processes (MDPs). Computing optimal drug administration strategies for chronic diseases is a sequential decision-making problem in which the goal is to find the best sequence of drug doses. MDPs are particularly suitable for modeling these problems due to their ability to capture the uncertainty associated with the outcome of the treatment and the stochastic nature of the underlying process. The RL algorithm employed in the proposed methodology is fitted Q iteration, which stands out for its ability to make an efficient use of data. RESULTS The experiments reported here are based on a computational model that describes the effect of ESAs on the hemoglobin level. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated and compared with the well-known Q-learning algorithm and with a standard protocol. Simulation results show that the performance of Q-learning is substantially lower than FQI and the protocol. When comparing FQI and the protocol, FQI achieves an increment of 27.6% in the proportion of patients that are within the targeted range of hemoglobin during the period of treatment. In addition, the quantity of drug needed is reduced by 5.13%, which indicates a more efficient use of ESAs. CONCLUSION Although prospective validation is required, promising results demonstrate the potential of RL to become an alternative to current protocols.

A new machine learning approach for predicting the response to anemia treatment in a large cohort of End Stage Renal Disease patients undergoing dialysis

Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) anemia is one of the main common comorbidities in patients undergoing End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD). Iron supplement and especially Erythropoiesis Stimulating Agents (ESA) have become the treatment of choice for that anemia. However, it is very complicated to find an adequate treatment for every patient in each particular situation since dosage guidelines are based on average behaviors, and thus, they do not take into account the particular response to those drugs by different patients, although that response may vary enormously from one patient to another and even for the same patient in different stages of the anemia. This work proposes an advance with respect to previous works that have faced this problem using different methodologies (Machine Learning (ML), among others), since the diversity of the CKD population has been explicitly taken into account in order to produce a general and reliable model for the prediction of ESA/Iron therapy response. Furthermore, the ML model makes use of both human physiology and drug pharmacology to produce a model that outperforms previous approaches, yielding Mean Absolute Errors (MAE) of the Hemoglobin (Hb) prediction around or lower than 0.6 g/dl in the three countries analyzed in the study, namely, Spain, Italy and Portugal.

Prediction of the hemoglobin level in hemodialysis patients using machine learning techniques

Patients who suffer from chronic renal failure (CRF) tend to suffer from an associated anemia as well. Therefore, it is essential to know the hemoglobin (Hb) levels in these patients. The aim of this paper is to predict the hemoglobin (Hb) value using a database of European hemodialysis patients provided by Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) for improving the treatment of this kind of patients. For the prediction of Hb, both analytical measurements and medication dosage of patients suffering from chronic renal failure (CRF) are used. Two kinds of models were trained, global and local models. In the case of local models, clustering techniques based on hierarchical approaches and the adaptive resonance theory (ART) were used as a first step, and then, a different predictor was used for each obtained cluster. Different global models have been applied to the dataset such as Linear Models, Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Regression Trees among others. Also a relevance analysis has been carried out for each predictor model, thus finding those features that are most relevant for the given prediction.

Intelligent Data Analysis for Real-Life Applications: Theory and Practice

Prompted by crater counts as the only available tool for measuring remotely the relative ages of geologic formations on planets, advances in remote sensing have produced a very large database of high resolution planetary images, opening up an opportunity to survey much more numerous small craters improving the spatial and temporal resolution of stratigraphy. Automating the process of crater detection is key to generate comprehensive surveys of smaller craters. Here, the authors discuss two supervised machine learning techniques for crater detection algorithms (CDA): identification of craters from digital elevation models (also known as range images), and identification of craters from panchromatic images. They present applications of both techniques and demonstrate how such automated analysis has produced new knowledge about planet Mars. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-1806-0.ch008

Online fitted policy iteration based on extreme learning machines

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a learning paradigm that can be useful in a wide variety of real-world applications. However, its applicability to complex problems remains problematic due to different causes. Particularly important among these are the high quantity of data required by the agent to learn useful policies and the poor scalability to high-dimensional problems due to the use of local approximators. This paper presents a novel RL algorithm, called online fitted policy iteration (OFPI), that steps forward in both directions. OFPI is based on a semi-batch scheme that increases the convergence speed by reusing data and enables the use of global approximators by reformulating the value function approximation as a standard supervised problem. The proposed method has been empirically evaluated in three benchmark problems. During the experiments, OFPI has employed a neural network trained with the extreme learning machine algorithm to approximate the value functions. Results have demonstrated the stability of OFPI using a global function approximator and also performance improvements over two baseline algorithms (SARSA and Q-learning) combined with eligibility traces and a radial basis function network.

Least-squares temporal difference learning based on an extreme learning machine

Abstract Reinforcement learning (RL) is a general class of algorithms for solving decision-making problems, which are usually modeled using the Markov decision process (MDP) framework. RL can find exact solutions only when the MDP state space is discrete and small enough. Due to the fact that many real-world problems are described by continuous variables, approximation is essential in practical applications of RL. This paper is focused on learning the value function of a fixed policy in continuous MPDs. This is an important subproblem of several RL algorithms. We propose a least-squares temporal difference (LSTD) algorithm based on the extreme learning machine. LSTD is typically combined with local function approximators, which scale poorly with the problem dimensionality. Our approach allows us to approximate value functions using single-hidden layer feedforward networks (SLFNs), a type of artificial neural network extensively used in many fields. Due to the global nature of SLFNs, the proposed approach is more suitable than traditional methods for high-dimensional problems. The method was empirically evaluated on a set of MDPs whose dimensionality varies from 1 to 6. For comparison purposes, experiments were replicated using a standard LSTD algorithm combined with Gaussian radial basis functions. Experimental results suggest that, although both methods can approximate accurately value functions, the proposed approach requires considerably fewer resources for the same degree of accuracy.

Visual data mining with self-organising maps for ventricular fibrillation analysis

Detection of ventricular fibrillation (VF) at an early stage is being deeply studied in order to lower the risk of sudden death and allows the specialist to have greater reaction time to give the patient a good recovering therapy. Some works are focusing on detecting VF based on numerical analysis of time-frequency distributions, but in general the methods used do not provide insight into the problem. However, this study proposes a new methodology in order to obtain information about this problem. This work uses a supervised self-organising map (SOM) to obtain visually information among four important groups of patients: VF (ventricular fibrillation), VT (ventricular tachycardia), HP (healthy patients) and AHR (other anomalous heart rates and noise). A total number of 27 variables were obtained from continuous surface ECG recordings in standard databases (MIT and AHA), providing information in the time, frequency, and time-frequency domains. self-organising maps (SOMs), trained with 11 of the 27 variables, were used to extract knowledge about the variable values for each group of patients. Results show that the SOM technique allows to determine the profile of each group of patients, assisting in gaining a deeper understanding of this clinical problem. Additionally, information about the most relevant variables is given by the SOM analysis.

Matlab-based interface for the simultaneous acquisition of force measures and Doppler ultrasound muscular images

This paper tackles the design of a graphical user interface (GUI) based on Matlab (MathWorks Inc., MA), a worldwide standard in the processing of biosignals, which allows the acquisition of muscular force signals and images from a ultrasound scanner simultaneously. Thus, it is possible to unify two key magnitudes for analyzing the evolution of muscular injuries: the force exerted by the muscle and section/length of the muscle when such force is exerted. This paper describes the modules developed to finally show its applicability with a case study to analyze the functioning capacity of the shoulder rotator cuff.